The snow came thicker and thicker, the drifts shifting and changing until I couldn’t recognize anything. The temperature had plummeted and I’d started to shake, but I was more worried about Beckett: she’d gone pale and was stumbling as if sleepy, and I knew that meant she was dangerously cold. It felt like we’d been walking too long. Shouldn’t we have reached the car, by now?
Then my shin whacked into something hard. At first, I thought it was a fallen tree, but it was too smooth, too regular. I ran my hand over it. Metal.
As I saw the shape of it, stretching off to the left and right, realization slowly dawned. This must be the fallen cell phone tower. But Earl had said that was right up at the top of the hill. We’d overshot the car by half a mile. Dammit!
Beckett crouched down at the base of the tower, where it had broken. “Look,” she said, raising her voice over the wind.
I looked... and felt a slow, cold sickness rise in my gut. The metal was blackened and scorched. Explosives. It hadn’t blown down. Someone had deliberately cut the town off from the outside world.
I took Beckett’s hand and helped her up. But as she got to her feet, she wavered and almost fell. Fuck! She’d stopped shaking and that was a really bad sign. “Come on, Beckett!” I snapped, trying to sound angry to hide how worried I was. I hooked an arm under her shoulders and supported her, letting her lean against me as we stumbled along. Fuck! Fuck! You idiot, Corrigan! Why hadn’t I got in the snowplow with her? I’d failed to protect her, just like I’d failed to protect Chrissy. If something happens to her….
It felt like an hour before I glimpsed my pickup through the snow. By now, Beckett was just a dead weight, slumped against me. I wrestled her onto the back seat, jumped into the front and started the engine. I had to get her back to the hospital now—
The engine wouldn’t turn over.
I tried it again, but it was utterly dead. Either the cold had killed the starter motor or the gasoline had thickened in the tank. I thumped the steering wheel. Fuck!
I scrambled into the back seat and turned on the light. Oh God: it was worse than I’d thought. She was semi-conscious, barely stirring when I said her name, and her skin was deathly pale. I needed to warm her up, but it was barely any warmer inside than outside: I could see my breath and every surface I touched was freezing. I fired up the heater, but, without the engine running, it was a measly breeze of tepid air.
I lay down with her and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her on top of me. But there were too many layers: the insulation that had kept the cold out also kept my body heat in.
I stripped off my coat and then hers. Pulled her close again. Now I could feel how cold her body was and it scared me. She just soaked up my warmth with no movement, no sign of life. And her scrubs were making it worse, the pants were soaked through with melted snow. I dragged them down her legs and off, pulling her sneakers off, too, trying to ignore the glimpses of long, graceful thighs. When I took her feet in my hands, they were like blocks of ice. “Jesus, Beckett, come on,” I muttered. I could hear the fear in my voice, now. I’d done this. My weakness. I should have been strong enough to just get into the snow plow and resist her.
I started rubbing the circulation back into her with long, hard strokes, trying to get the blood moving in her calves and thighs. Then up her sides, through her scrub top, my palms rubbing the thin material over her waist, her arms, her shoulders. Over and over, working frantically at her, until at last I started to feel the tiniest hint of warmth creeping back into her. At first, it was only in her torso, her body still jealously guarding its heat, keeping it away from her extremities. But as I kept rubbing, as the car gradually warmed from my body heat, her color started to creep back. Her neck turned from white to pink, then her hips and her thighs. I wrapped her up in both coats, using them as blankets while I kept working on her legs. She stirred, then her eyes fluttered open.
“Are you okay?” I asked in a rush. I tried to keep my voice level, but it was useless: I was terrified.
She blinked. Frowned. Experimentally shifted her legs against the coats. “Where are my pants?” she asked.
I wasn’t ready for the wave of relief that hit me. It sliced through me, washing everything else away, then lifting me up and making me heady and stupid. “Oh, Jesus, Beckett,” I croaked. Her face was still so pale. I cupped her cheeks in my palms, feeling my warmth soaking into her—